Just more pure liberal drivel from Colleen O'Dea.

What does your comment mean? Are you disputing facts and quotes? If so, which ones? I thought the comments section was for discussion, not insults. Is another one of your tactics shouting people down?

Could someone, anyone, show me where in either the State or Federal Constitution the government has the obligation to set wages? Oh BTW, our big tough talking bully of a Governor is just as bad, remember, he decided he could set the wages of school's superintendents! So, just think what a hypocrite he'll be if he veto this bill.

I guess that is called a catch 22?

The minimum wage is not designed for a wage to provide the means for all aspects of living costs -it is a beginning wage designed for those starting out in the workplace. therefore, to argue it is sopposed to be something different is bogus

In the alternative liberal universe of Colleen O-(D), the working poor are presumed to so stupid and asocial that they are unable to advance their careers, take a second job, share expenses, live with parents, or even simply rent a cheaper urban apartment. She also believes that the liberal universe is immune to economic laws. In it, small businesses do not need profit to exist, and do not contract and then close when they are are unable to afford paying increased wages.

Curt why you would even question if the government has this right is puzzling. US constitution article 16, NJ state constitution article 2 section 6. Now that you know it is legal what is your position?

Our absolute inability to see the plight of the Working Poor is what will prevent the ecconomy from growing. These are the people who spend what they earn. Corporations are taking advantage of the unemployment rate to deprive employees of a living wage and benefits that used to be a part of that wage and Corporate profits have never been higher. Do you believe that a person making minimum wage also has heath insurance? Even if you think that minimum wage earners are kids under 26 why would you then oppose heath insurance for them being included on their parents plan under the Affordable Health Care Act. That is Obamacare and Romneycare for you idealogues. I just don't get it. I do understand Morris Counties Republicans. Michael Patrick Carroll turned his minimum wage job into a lifetime of income from the taxpayers even though he hates government but he calls an increase in the Minimum Wage and entitlement program.

I hope that extra $50 a week before taxes helps all these people rocket out of poverty. Maybe they could put that money towards buying a clue as to why they are there in the first place.

After reading the book Nicked and Dimed, I understand the need to raise the minimum wage nationwide. A good read.

Two fallacies in this article:

1) That the minimum wage equates to the minimum value of labor. In other words, the value of ones labor has a legislative cure rather than something influenced by personal initiative. It's delusional to think one can or should expect a living wage from unskilled menial labor. These are the jobs at the bottom of the ladder that are the first rung on the climb upward.

2) That increasing the minimum wage will actually help the people the legislators claim will benefit. It wiil only decrease the number of jobs available at the new artificially high wage. One only need look at the outcomes for skilled puplic workers who have pushed relentlessly for ever greater pay and benefits which in turn has forced municipalities to fire workers and reduce services. Raising labor costs at the bottom of the pay scale is the equivilent to cutting the bottom rungs off the ladder up.

If legislators want to increase employment, they should reduce the cost of labor, not increase it. A small business in NJ spends approx. 7K per employee in regulatory compliance. That's about $3.50/hr in added overhead.

It really comes down to a choice between 1) higher employment/higher growth or 2) lower employment/lower growth; forcing up labor costs or lowering them; more jobs or less.

The legislature can no more repeal the basic laws of economics than they can repeal the law of gravity. Unfortunately there are plenty of ignorant people who think otberwise.

One thing that the author left out, if someone is making minimum wage and is the head of a household, they are also going to receive a fairly generous earned income tax credit from both the US and NJ. It's actually a better way to boost income for low income workers who are supporting families as it is targeted at just that small population. Trying to fix the problem through a government mandated increase for all minimum wage workers will drive up unemployment amongst teenagers and other entry-level workers who need a first job to gain some experience and skills.

When I imagine a minimum wage worker I don't imagine someone who is trying to support a household. I imagine a student, someone earning a second income, someone living with relatives and starting in the work force.
I suspect that the author is equally capable of imagining the existence of these people, but deliberately chooses to ignore them and instead portray this worst case scenario. It is a feeble rhetorical ploy in my opinion and the opposite of honest debate.

The 500 Largest Corporations increased their profits by 16 percent last year in the midst of the worst ecconomy in decades and you guys talk about decreasing the costs of wages. Catherine talks about what she "Imagines" right in the face of real statistics in the article. Does she also imagine that there is a big rock candy mountain? DXJ wants to REDUCE the cost of labor. In other words lets pay people less. Maybe he wants a return to indentured servitude. Several times a week I take credit applications from people trying to finance a reasonable vehicle between $5- $7 thousand. I see their incomes and how they try to strech them. They are not looking for fancy new cars. They just want to get to work and buy something reliable. The main thread of all your comments is " the heck with them it is their fault"

Is a 15 percent or 20 percent minimum wage bump really enough? Colleen, Dan, other fellow travelers, answer me a serious question -- why not $25 per hour? Why not $40? Why mess around with this incremental tweaks that still keep the less valuable workers receiving the less valuable compensation. To each according to his needs hah rah!

Who is John Galt?

1.25 per hour more will not give you 50.00 a week more (40 hours X 1.25 is 50.00) but after taxes etc you get 30.00 to 40.00. Someone who started a year ago that got a raise 1.00 now gets 8.25. If the minimum goes to 8.50 the new hire will to getting the same as the one who has been there a year. So everyone get 1.25 raise. That times 50 to 100 part time workers amounts to 3000.00 to 6000.00 per week including employers share of taxes. This cost will be passed on to everyone. So fast food, retail etc will just raise all the prices or cut down on hires. Education it needed to advance in the workplace, knowone can live on 7.25. After all the prices go up we have to go to 10.00 then 15.00 etc.

Colleen, as most of her columns do, writes a headline on the blackboard and backfills in selective emoitfacts. I went through an early period making probably close to minimum wage -- but I couldn't afford her scenario of living in two of the most expensive counties in the country. And I couldn't afford a 40 hour week, I worked two and maybe three jobs. And I had at least one and sometimes two roommates. and after all that I was left with a beer budget of only about $1,000 per month. But the whole process made me think it might be good to develop a marketable skill.

So Colleen's chosen scenario of living in Morris County NJ (median home price, $455,000) versus living in Morris County Kansas (median home price $68,000) may be part of the issue. One could easily write a column asking if you could get by without roommates living in Malibu on a mere $100,000 per year for a 8 hour, five day a week job.

Frankly I don't buy the whole "crushing weight of taxes and regulatory expenses" argument, nor do I think paying people a fairly indexed living wage will be too burdensome for small business. Businesses will pass it on to their customers, as they should. Do you really want to do business with a company that doesn't pay their employees enough to live on? Or live in a State that doesn't support a fair living wage? The kinds of jobs that are paid the minimum hourly wage are important, as are the people who do them. I think it's very short sighted to think that lowering the cost of labor will somehow improve anyone's business, all you're doing is taking customers away from everyone's businesses. If it costs me a buck more for a burger so that someone can make enough to live on a full time job, I'm cool with that. These are my neighbors.

While Republicans are focused on mythical disaster 10-20-30 years from now, the middle class and working poor need money and jobs now. The Stock Market is back up to where it was before the crash, "the Investor class is fine" Corporations are making record profits and all the rest of us are being crushed. The NJ Republicans are primarily from the wealthiest area's of the State and the bottom line is simple. They don't care about us. Suppose there was no minimum wage. In this labor market people would be scrambling for what ever they can make. You see it right now in more middleclass positions. Is it the job of the "Job Creators" to create jobs in third world countries for their investor class? Is that all there is to Capitalism? People like Romney are vultures. They make fortunes off reducing the costs of labor and outsourcing jobs and breaking contracts through bankruptcy. All that is being created are minimum wage jobs and they don't want that number to go any higher.

To Dan and Prentiss et al.

Again, why only $8.50? How about $45? If you were an elected representative, would you vote against a $45 per hour minimum wage, and why?

Colleen's article could be summed up by the quote "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." According to her article, the evil corporations have the ability to pay more, the entry level or bottom wage earners have the need to make more. That quote is Karl Marx, of course.

The bottomline is, anyone that has ever been anywhere near running a business with manual or entry level skills knows exactly what happens. If your labor costs go up 15 percent, you cut 15 percent of your workforce. That may not mean all pink slips. It might mean cutting people to part time, from a "guaranteed" 40 hour schedule to a "be on call" hourly basis. Less or no benefits.

If the twitty answer "pass it along to the customers" were possible, do you think businesses have been sitting around with some artificially low revenue model? Do the burdens of regulation, healthcare, taxation, paperwork, accounting, legal costs, and a million other costs factors fall so evenly any more that Adam Smith's Invisible Hand can even rise in New Jersey?

Also, I hope you are never in a situation where your 22 year old friend, relative, acquaintence or whomever cannot afford healt care insurance because they are no longer covered by the ACA. And before anyone starts in with the snide nanny state comments; YES I do believe health care is a RIGHT, and that we should take care of our own.
Given the fact that 93% of all incremental wealth creation in the past 15 years has gone to 1% of the population and that 38% of all wealth creation has gone to just the top 15K households (that 0.00015% for the record) it seems an increase in the minimum wage is the least that can be done

Well, this conversation just made a left into Zuccotti Park, so, whatever, but you should know that most fast food franchises you see are NOT owned by the corporate name. Most McDonald's franchises are owned by local businessmen, who wear top hats and tux tails and smoke big cigars riding around in 1930 Pierce-Arrow limos cackling like maniacs and swerving into puddles to soak doe-eyed puppies.

Dan, it is not surprising to me that you have had a series of small businesses with your attitude.

As it happens, I have never paid any employees anywhere near minimum wage either, I've paid them what they were worth to the business. Some were worth more to other businesses than to mine and left. Some made 5 times what they had ever made in their lives and made careers where they are in the top 20 percent of wage earners that actually pay for roads and everything else in America. Some got let go because I could put someone in their spot that would help grow the team for everyone.

That's not greed, that's business. And if everyone isn't trying as hard as you can, and you aren't building a team to succeed, you are hurting everyone you employ, denying them security and upward mobility in a growing business, which I suspect some people in your past suffered under your "partnership" regime. So, by running a business sloppy on financial efficiency and management, did you REALLY help your employees? If so, where are they?

Few:

-- I suspect too many people take unemployment or welfare rather than minimum wage jobs. I'd like to see the debate address that. If raising the minimum wage forces people off the dole I'm all for it.

-- People are saying that McDonalds, Walmart, Marriott, etc are the minimum wage centers. ANY big company has salary/performance reviews early on. To me that indicates that if these people are largely based at big corporations they are either people who can't perform (eg: show up for work) or who keep flipping from job to job. Even if you get a 2 percent raise after a year you are over minimum wage. So where are all these minimum wage workers, and how long have they been at that company?

-- I suspect Dan Grant's Seminar For Building Your Small Business and Managing Political Campaigns was under-subscribed.

One point that people are missing that I always look at is "What is the value of this employee?", and in a similar light, "What value are they producing?"

I worry that too many businesses are looking at the minimum wage as the agreed upon starting rate for employees in entry level positions, rather than determining what the fair or market value is for the position that is available.

Economics determine what an employee earns or is worth to an employer. I fear that the government involvement of a minimum wage is being used to establish a wage floor that is the default payment to non-salaried entry level positions.

Then the government makes exceptions to different industries (ie, restaurants) and picks and chooses where these rules will apply.

While I am not necessarily in favor of a free for all market, I do feel that free economics will determine what a fair wage is for the job and the skills required. Businesses that pay a poor rate will not be attractive to employees, and the market will correct this in how the consumer frequents or purchases from these businesses.

Are there going to be exceptions? Certainly. But if I had a choice of a business determining what a fair wage is versus a bureaucrat who won a popularity contest and may not have any experience whatsoever in business, economics, benefits, or competition, I would take the business every time.

Mark you assume that we are in some capitalist utopia when a fair wage is in the interest of Corporations. It isn't. The proof lies in the fact that wages have remained flat for 30 years when adjusted for inflation and in fact have declined for many workers while hours have been increased and benefits have been reduced. The history of the rise of labor unions is all about the fight for a share of the earnings of a Corporation and you can see the decline of wages as Unions declined in membership. If you didn't have a floor on wages you could not count on Corporations being fair. We see it right now when the demand for jobs is much larger than the supply and the jobs that are offered have a decreasing wage scale. While you don't trust the Government if they were not a part of the work place we would still have children chained to machines and unsafe work conditions for all labor. China doesn't set wages, is that what you want?

Dan, I think you are giving Unions and the government way too much credit. Unions are large contributors to our current economic situation, as is a government that can't make enough promises to anyone and everyone about how it can help their lives.

The rise in unions was about a fair wage for a fair day's work, and safe working conditions, at a time when the average worker did not have the means to communicate the true working conditions at a particular company. What it has evolved into is something akin to a Super PAC, telling it's members who to vote for and to make sure that they do not perform their job duties at a level above the bare minimum.

Are corporations making record profits? Absolutely. Is the demand there as it was 5 years ago? No. Are most companies running as lean as possible in order to be as profitable as they can be? Yes, as that is their responsibility to the owners, shareholders, lenders, and the consumers who invariably pay for their overhead costs through the price of products and services.

And I did not say anything about a capitalist utopia, but to suggest that most companies and corporations want to have employees that do only the bare minimum and remain in their entry level, minimum wage positions is ignorant. Capitalism, for all its faults, will filter out the companies that do not provide opportunity for advancement, fair wages, and a safe working environment. It takes time, there is some pain associated with it, but it happens.

And does anyone think that the efforts of those in entry level positions that pay minimum wage are such that they should immediately be promoted to CEO? My experience with these positions is certainly not a positive one, and these employees give such a poor effort in their job duties that it amazes me that they still have a job.

Minimum wage positions are not supposed to allow a person the chance to live like millionaires. They are entry level, designed to create incentive to work hard and earn advancement, not to provide a comfortable living.

I am not ignoring the plight of someone who earns minimum wage. I will pay someone based on their skills and the value that they can add to my business and my clients, which is more than fair. At the minimum wage pay scale, people have to forgo some of the non-essential expenses.

I have worked in companies that have fixed pay scales, and I do not believe in them at all. I feel that at-will employment should involve a relationship between the employee and employer, one that clearly defines roles, responsibilities, and what is necessary for advancement. This allows both parties to be fair with one another, and both to benefit. It gets away from the aggressor/victim relationship that is so prevalent and promoted by the media and government.

Steve, I have an issue with that as well, but you are witnessing the backlash in many of the shareholder meetings that are taking place throughout the country. And Wal-Mart is having plenty of issues right now due to their policies on labor relations, benefits, and international affairs.

Do I think that CEO pay should be commensurate with their performance? Absolutely. Pay should be related to performance at ALL levels, regardless of standing.

Should a CEO make more than a cashier? Should a teacher make more than a police officer? Should an athlete make more than the President? Should a union representative make more than the employees of the unions they represent?

All valid questions, but who are you or I to determine that? Should I determine what you make? Should you determine what I make? Should Congress determine what I am free to make?

I do not look at those with large incomes with disdain, I see it as a sign of someone who has achieved something that many others are jealous of. Are there those out there who have come into this money through illegal and unethical ways? Yes (think the Kennedy family) I see achievement by others as an accomplishment and the result of positioning, hard work, smart decisions, etc.

We live in the greatest time in human history, yet most people are afraid and/or unwilling to due what is necessary to move up to the next tax bracket, and find comfort in berating those who are already there.

Gary, are you asking if someone making minimum wage should be able to live in poverty?

The levels that we identify as poverty do not necessarily equate to the lifestyle that is discussed in this article. A rent of $1,233 per month is $14,796 per year, which, if you listen to the money advisors, should represent about 30% of a person's income, or require an annual income of $49,320.

So should we legislate all landlords to cap rent at 30% of the income of the established poverty level? Or require minimum wage positions to start at $50,000 per year?

All the people arguing for the government intervention can not answer one simple question. Why not $20 or $30 or $40? If you loudly don't believe that businesses will suffer from a 15 percent hike, why not a really meaningful one?

This is the moral waiver law of small thefts. Steal a dollar, that is overlooked. Steal a million, suddenly principles come into play.

And anyone comfotable with Trenton tinkering with private sector economics has not seen laws being made.

And, by the way, what the heck does "poverty" mean? Your $16 grand in Kansas makes ends meet. You 60 grand in Lakewood makes ends meet. Your $60 grand in Mendham mike as well be $15k, because you aren't going to make ends meet.

Ah yes, the Buffet rule comes to minimum wage discussions. As with WB and his completely out of context remarks about his effective tax rate vs that of his administrative assistant there is no prohibition from writing a check and donating money to correct something one perceives as a social wrong. Not sure if anybody else likes the band Rush, but:

' So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light."
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.'

@Dan Grant. "The proof lies in the fact that wages have remained flat for 30 years when adjusted for inflation..."

This is one of those soundbites aimed at the unsophisticated Democrat voter base.

Something remaining flat except for inflation is the norm, not a problem.

Accompanying that period of time is the rise of the two income family, the progressive tax structure to the point where the majority of taxfilers pay nothing toward the federal governmnet, skyrocketing overhead on regulations to run a business, and the explosion of entitlements across society.

Couple of things, I think the Minimum wage question of "why not $50 an hour?" has been answered. The government sets a base wage, with exceptions, that restricts business as little as possible while attempting to provide these workers with enough to live on.

As unions have fallen in popularity over the past 30 years (union membership is at a near 100 year low) salaries have stopped growing at a rate that beats inflation, at least for the "middle, and lower" income groups. Unions have made a big difference, for the better, across all levels of middle and lower class wage earners. I don't think anyone here is arguing that the policies in force during the last 30 years have not caused most of the wealth to be accumulated by higher wage earners and larger corporations. This is an unbalanced state of affairs and needs to be corrected because it causes tremendous instability and loss of opportunity. If you want to call that "communism", "socialism" or "lefty talk" so be it, but it's hard to say that it isn't economic fact. Single employees, small and medium sized businesses don't survive in Societies unbalanced in this way. I don't think anyone wants to steal rich people's money, and if they did I doubt anyone here would be a target. What they really want is the chance to make some of their own, in a fair market, where they do have a chance to succeed if they work smart and hard.

Federal minimum wage chart since 1938!!!!!!!!!

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm

Prentiss, I respectfully disagree with several of your points. Most important, how do you equate the average wage with instability and a loss of opportunity? We live in a country where there is unlimited opportunity for those who are willing to do the work and earn it.

Too many people are acting as though there is a finite amount of wealth that can be accumulated, and it is all in the hands of the "bad" guys and needs to be taken back. Do you know how many businesses employee those of all income levels who provide goods and services to the "bad" guys?

Wealth can be created in this society almost out of nothing. If you own a stock and it's value goes up 100 fold, who was taken advantage of for it to get to that price? Sure, people may have shorted it or sold at the wrong time, but those are choices. It doesn't mean that someone was screwed in order to gain that wealth..

90-95% of the affluent in this country have not been handed their money, they earned it. People may start at minimum wage, but they do not need to stay there. I am a big believer in people earning most of what they get out of life, both positive or negative. Perhaps that makes me rare, but you cannot convince me that people do not have opportunities for advancement here. I see too pany people content with doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, or someone else to just give something to them. EARN IT.

And yet, according to the Cato Institute, since 1970 the inflation adjusted cost for a K through 12 public education has tripled while achievemnt in Math, Reading, and Science is flat to lower. I wonder, does our public education system (that seems to put the needs of union members over those of our children) cause any instability?

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/inflation-adjusted-cost-k-12-public-education-and-percent-change-achievement-17-year-olds-1970

@Prentiss: "Couple of things, I think the Minimum wage question of "why not $50 an hour?" has been answered. The government sets a base wage, with exceptions, that restricts business as little as possible while attempting to provide these workers with enough to live on."

False. The government (Trenton) doesn't consider any of those things except in lip service. It is all politics, that is why the vote was 99 percent partisan.

The things you try to blithely quantify ("restricts business as little as possible" and "enough to live on") are unquantifiable at a human level. The tiny family-owned restaurant wiped out into bankruptcy by having its labor costs go up 15 percent is affected a bit more than Merck with probably zero minimum wage employees.

You think lifelong government employees like Sheila Oliver or Ron Rice or union official Sweeney give a damn about restricting businesses? They want a bullet item for their next campaign mailer.

(cont) That is the point -- there is no quantifiable metrics or semblance of fairness here.

What does "enough to live on" mean? Colleen wants her own place in affluent Morris County, without roommates, and nights and weekends free. That to her is enough to live on. As someone quite fairly estimated above, that is more like $21 dollars an hour.

To the business that might expand on the basis of some employees at $X per hour, but can't afford it at $X plus government mandate per hour, that is an opportunity for all society lost. For the unskilled or inexperienced worker whose labor is only worth X, there may not be a job available for what amounts to a business engaging in charity for the difference between X and X+government mandate. Charity is fine, but it shouldn't be mandated.

So you wind up with businesses suffering from and inability to grow and workers unemployed who might be employable at a market rate.

This is a large part of the reason why concentrations of lower skilled and inexperienced workers, as in NJ's inner cities, suffer from unemployment rates at many multiples of the state-wide average. The legislative do-gooders kill their own constituency. what businesses survive there? Family-owned immigrant business which can get around minimum wage laws by virtue of blood.

PS: much of the above logic is cadged from Milton Friedman.

I certainly do not maintain that there is only a certain amount of wealth or money to be had, just that the opportunity to earn new wealth is tilted in favor of higher income entities. If that were not the case then why the growing disparity? I'm sure you don't feel that you're one of those people who expects to be given something for nothing? And yet as hard as you work, assuming you do (you certainly sound like you do), your earned income is affected by this as well. All of us are loosing ground and have been since the 1980's. It's not because we're lazy, and as you rightly say, it's not because there is only so much to go around. The US's GDP has grown steadily since the 1970's, but when indexed for inflation your compensation has most likely fallen. You work just as hard, perhaps even harder and smarter (possibly even more experienced) but you're actually getting less. Maybe you don't see that, but if you were making minimum wage it's fallen 26% since 1974. I think that's worth fixing.

I am an employer, not an employee, so my income is indexed to what I and my employees earn. So I don't expect anything to be given to me.

To me the disparity isn't the issue if there is not a finite amount of wealth. If you want to make an argument that the wealthy control the incomes of those outside their tax brackets, I think that is a weak argument at best.

My earned income is more affected by the Fed who seems destined to punish people who are responsible and save part of their incomes by driving interest rates to nothing all in an effort to get more people to borrow more money which they can't afford to pay back.

And do you expect the wealthy to make less all of a sudden? It makes no sense that someone would do something that continues to make them wealthier, and then all of a sudden stop and decide to make less and not add more to their nest egg.

Nope, no one wants to make less. You think that's why the Fed is holding interest rates down? Interesting theory. The disparity won't bother you unless you believe that a larger and larger share of GDP is going to a smaller and smaller group. Unless you believe more and more small businesses are getting squeezed out by conglomerates with deeper pockets and better breaks. And certainly not if you think the tax structure is fair. If it's ok that Exxon still qualifies for oil and gas subsides, and multinationals pay less tax than you do, fine. However, I don't believe you really think that way, you're obviously too smart for that.

You see, I just don't buy that all the "Tax Relief" being talked about is coming our way. They're not for businesses like yours and mine, we just don't have the lobby for them. I'm a capitalist through and through, but I would never say today's markets are anything like fair, they're not going to get fairer and I wouldn't say working hard is a guarantee of anything anymore. That's part of the problem, a lot of Americans, in growing numbers, are trying to earn a living and they can't. Which means they can't buy what you and I sell either. See where this is going? There's a big difference between lazy and lacking opportunity and becoming hopeless and disillusioned.

Anyway, this is about raising the minimum wage to a reasonable level, is that really going to hurt us? Our parents managed it (and with a lot less whining).

Not to point out the obvious, although no one has, but we are not the United Island of America. India and Japan and China are all enmeshed in our economy, and also have financed most of our entitlement culture.

And if you think our global competitive stance is enhanced by setting an artificial floor on labor value, you have another think coming.

Does this sound familiar to some of you because it is how we work in America now.

Gordon Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bull. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it. You've got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I've still got a lot to teach you.

Gordon Gekko: It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another.

I seem to have done a poor job expressing myself. Do I like very profitable companies getting subsidized? No, but understand what the scenario was at the time those subsidies were put in place. It made sense then, much as the AMT did when it was put in place to make sure that the richest paid at least some portion of their income in taxes. Further legislation was not put in place to adjust for inflation or a change in economic conditions.

In regards to my comments about the Fed, their low rate policy is having a dramatic effect on everyone, especially those who have savings or have some of their income based on the interest of their savings. Due to the Fed wanting people to have the ability to borrow on the cheap, they are directly hurting those who don't want or have a need to borrow. It's punishment for responsibility.

@Dan, Gekko was wrong then, and it is still wrong. The wealth in this country is not handed down from one generation to the next. That is by far the exception and not the norm. The IRS released information in regards to how 90+ percent of the rich got there by earning, not inheriting. If finance were a zero sum game, then someone buying apple shares at $80 and selling them at $500 would have had to screw someone over, and that is not the case.

I guess that depends on the meaning of "Earned". The Gambino family had good earners. Let's not lose site of what this discussion is about. That is simply raising the earning level of the lowest paid workers in our ecconomy. Under Reagan it was done once, under, Bush 1 twice, Clinton once and Bush 2 twice. The only people it had an impact on were those whose minimum wage was raised. We have this lenghty discussion about this increase and no discussion about how the whole nature of Capitalism has changed. We don't build better widgets. We either ship the widget manufacturing to another country for the benefit of the few or like Bain we come in the night raid the widget factory and sell off the pieces. The result is the same for working people.

Criminals, like Governments, don't EARN anything, they just take what they want. Thanks for reminding us of the similarities between the two.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln

One thing the rich will always help is themselves. They will cut back on their 'philanthropies' and charitable contributions, but they're sure as heck not going to change their lifestyles. Heck, they're special. They're rich! If we were as good as they were, we'd all be rich too. Just ask them, they'll tell you. Question: Who did all of the actual work to HELP make them their money?

If you re in the NJ 7th district, you have a chance to stop government interference like this in in our lives on June the 5th. Vote for David Larsen a true conservative, to replace Lenard Lance, a true bought and paid for career politician, RINO!

http://www.davidlarsenforcongress.com/

I find it interesting reading there appear to be two distinct attitudes here. One where people actually care about the society as whole and try to find solutions that benefit all and one where self-centered materialism is the over-riding objective (sometimes even veiled in the cloak of some Christian mumbo-jumbo.

Dan, I'm not commandeering anything. All I did was put up two Bible Verses. Oh and YES! using the government to force someone to pay someone else more than they are worth is indeed talking about supporting people who refuse to work to the full potential God has place in every one of us.

Also, why don't you try and answer some of the questions put to you? You claim I understand the the Constitution poorly. Really? Well then why don't you read Article I, section 8 which CLEARLY defines the limits placed on our central government, and then tell me where in there the government has a right to set wages?

BTW Dan, if you think we as a society should help the poor more, that's great and truly a wonderful sediment on your behalf, so I'm sure you know you can always write a check to Uncle Sam above and beyond what you already pay in taxes.

You do not grow a responsible society by taking away the accountability of the individual

You do not multiply wreath, by dividing wreath

Curt, the government is bigger than a document written in the 1770's. The Constitution is bigger than it was in the 1770's. I'm not sure we're going to actually get anywhere arguing what's covered in the Constitution. I appreciate your concern, but unless you take it to the Supreme court and get them to rule on it, it doesn't make much difference today.

I do think you bring up a good point, perhaps only glancingly though. I doubt any of us want to live in a country that doesn't take care of it's citizens. The question is then, how do we do that? I don't think you're actually advocating a "sink or swim" approach to encourage personal responsibility, am I wrong?

If not, then let me ask a question. If it turned out to be more expensive than what we are doing now to run a system that was designed to get people into the workforce successfully and should they fail, back on their feet as fast as possible, encouraged personal responsibility and was carefully measured for it's success rate (That's my take on what you're advocating with "Teach a man to fish"). Would you agree to pay for that?

Actually, here is the quote from Lincoln that is on point:

"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

Abraham Lincoln